Navigating the News Net: How News Consumers Read the Electronic Version of a Daily Newspaper

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Abstract
More and more news outlets are opening up on the World Wide Web. As newspapers in the UK and around the world join broadcasters such as CNN and the BBC, and news agencies (e.g. AP, Reuters), there is much discussion about the particular features of an online news service that set it apart from its print equivalent. This concentration on the migration of the news content from one medium to another has not, however, been accompanied by the same concern for the migration of the reader. This paper describes one small-scale experiment observing users both freely negotiating The Times Web site and engaged in specified tasks that examined navigational and other access/retrieval issues. Findings indicate that the much trumpeted “value-added” element of newspaper Web editions – such as reference and archive services – were not expected or particularly admired by readers, who simply required a comprehensive hard news service. Navigational difficulties, occasioned by poor signposting, multiple menu bars, unstructured contents lists and complicated organisation and layout, proved to be issues shaping user opinion far more than actual site content.

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